On May 15, we’ll have our last session. This is a chance to talk about your papers, for me to talk about what I’ve learned, and to discuss anything that you’d like. Also, please read this excerpt from a lecture I delivered at Harvard two weeks ago.
Please read the article by Richard Haass, “The New Middle East,” and this exchange between Carl Gershman and I on democracy.
Last June, the columnist Ralph Peters published the article “Blood Borders” in the Armed Forces Journal. Read it: he makes a provocative case for redrawing the map. The article caused quite a storm, especially in Turkey and Pakistan. Here is one (Turkish) response , and Peters’ reply to it. And here’s another strong rejoinder by […]
Palestine is our second case study of a virtual entity that haunts the map. For this session, read this article on Palestinian identity by Musa Budeiri. Also familiarize yourself with the map collection of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, and this collection by PASSIA, a Palestinian research institute in East Jerusalem.
How did Iraq come to be stitched together as one state? This article provides a readable narrative overview. The question of whether Iraq is destined to come undone is a contested one. This article, by Peter Galbraith, favors dividing the country, while this article makes the case for keeping it whole. And here is a […]
Following today’s session, I want to be sure you have the map of the Sykes-Picot agreement in your mind. This is it: Here is a map of Palestine in the Sykes-Picot agreement: And here is the text of the agreement: It is accordingly understood between the French and British Governments— 1. That France and Great […]
We do not have a class on March 13 (I will be in Washington at the annual AIPAC conference). The class scheduled for March 15 will deal with the attempts to unify that which the foreign powers set asunder, through pan-Arabism and pan-Islam. Read this article by Efraim Karsh.
First, read this account of all the many territorial disputes that roil the Middle East, by Iranian journalist-in-exile Amir Tahri. His point: the Middle East “problem” isn’t just about Israel’s borders. Then zero in on Arab states in this unsparing critique of their weaknesses by Abbas Kelidar, an Iraqi Shiite who was once an adviser […]
David Fromkin is the author of the invaluable study of the post-World War One settlement, The Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East. It’s a book you should try to read at some point, as a fine example of narrative history. In the […]
For this session, on the pre-modern Islamic concept of space and borders, please read this short conclusion to a very detailed study on the Islamic conception of borders.